https://twitter.com/PhilipPullella/status/1094534321057206272

Abuse of Faith

20 years, 700 victims: Southern Baptist sexual abuse spreads as leaders resist reforms

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Southern-Baptist-sexual-abuse-spreads-as-leaders-13588038.php

Feb. 10, 2019

FTA (Much moar, including video at link):

Thirty-five years later, Debbie Vasquez's voice trembled as she described her trauma to a group of Southern Baptist leaders.

She was 14, she said, when she was first molested by her pastor in Sanger, a tiny prairie town an hour north of Dallas. It was the first of many assaults that Vasquez said destroyed her teenage years and, at 18, left her pregnant by the Southern Baptist pastor, a married man more than a dozen years older.

In June 2008, she paid her way to Indianapolis, where she and others asked leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and its 47,000 churches to track sexual predators and take action against congregations that harbored or concealed abusers. Vasquez, by then in her 40s, implored them to consider prevention policies like those adopted by faiths that include the Catholic Church.

"Listen to what God has to say," she said, according to audio of the meeting, which she recorded. "… All that evil needs is for good to do nothing. … Please help me and others that will be hurt."

Days later, Southern Baptist leaders rejected nearly every proposed reform.

The abusers haven't stopped. They've hurt hundreds more.

In the decade since Vasquez's appeal for help, more than 250 people who worked or volunteered in Southern Baptist churches have been charged with sex crimes, an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News reveals.

It's not just a recent problem: In all, since 1998, roughly 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, the newspapers found. That includes those who were convicted, credibly accused and successfully sued, and those who confessed or resigned. More of them worked in Texas than in any other state.

They left behind more than 700 victims, many of them shunned by their churches, left to themselves to rebuild their lives. Some were urged to forgive their abusers or to get abortions.

About 220 offenders have been convicted or took plea deals, and dozens of cases are pending. They were pastors. Ministers. Youth pastors. Sunday school teachers. Deacons. Church volunteers.

————–

HOW WE DID THIS STORY:

In 2007, victims of sexual abuse by Southern Baptist pastors requested creation of a registry containing the names of current and former leaders of Southern Baptist churches who had been convicted of sex crimes or who had been credibly accused. That didn't happen; the last time any such list was made public was by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. It contained the names of eight sex criminals.

In 2018, as advocates again pressed SBC officials for such a registry, Houston Chronicle reporters began to search news archives, websites and databases nationwide to compile an archive of allegations of sexual abuse, sexual assault and other serious misconduct involving Southern Baptist pastors and other church officials. We found complaints made against hundreds of pastors, church officials and volunteers at Southern Baptist churches nationwide.

We focused our search on the 10 years preceding the victims' first call for a registry and on the 10-plus years since. And we concentrated on individuals who had a documented connection to a church listed in an SBC directory published by a state or national association.

We verified details in hundreds of accounts of abuse by examining federal and state court databases, prison records and official documents from more than 20 states and by searching sex offender registries nationwide. In Texas, we visited more than a dozen county courthouses. We interviewed district attorneys and police in more than 40 Texas counties. We filed dozens of public records requests in Texas and nationwide.

Ultimately, we compiled information on 380 credibly accused officials in Southern Baptist churches, including pastors, deacons, Sunday school teachers and volunteers.

We verified that about 220 had been convicted of sex crimes or received deferred prosecutions in plea deals and sent letters to all of them soliciting their responses to summaries we compiled. We received written responses from more than 30 and interviewed three in Texas prisons. Of the 220, more than 90 remain in prison and another 100 are still registered sex offenders.

Find our records that relate to those convicted or forced to register as sex offenders at HoustonChronicle.com/AbuseofFaith.

Vatican to rule next week on defrocking of disgraced U.S. cardinal

FEBRUARY 8, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-abuse-mccarrick/vatican-to-rule-next-week-on-defrocking-of-disgraced-u-s-cardinal-sources-idUSKCN1PX1O8

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Vatican officials will meet next week to decide the fate of disgraced former U.S. cardinal Theodore McCarrick over allegations of sexual abuse, Vatican sources said on Friday.

Vatican sources told Reuters last month that McCarrick will almost certainly be dismissed from the priesthood, which would make him the highest profile Roman Catholic figure to be defrocked in modern times.

Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the Vatican department that will rule on the case, met Pope Francis on Thursday, according to a public Vatican schedule.

The Vatican did not say what was discussed but one source said it was likely that Ladaria briefed the pontiff on the final stages of the McCarrick case. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.

Francis, who will have to sign off on any dismissal decision, wants the McCarrick case over before heads of national Catholic churches meet at the Vatican from Feb. 21-24 to discuss the global sexual abuse crisis, three Vatican sources told Reuters last month.

In July, McCarrick, 88, became the first Catholic prelate in nearly 100 years to lose the title of cardinal. The allegations against him date back to decades ago when he was still rising to the top of the U.S. Church hierarchy.

McCarrick, who rose to be a power broker in the American Church as Archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006, is living in seclusion in a remote friary in Kansas.

He has responded publicly to only one of the allegations, saying he has “absolutely no recollection” of an alleged case of sexual abuse of a 16-year-old boy more than 50 years ago.

He has not responded publicly to separate allegations by several priests and ex-priests who have come forward alleging he used his authority to coerce them to sleep with him when they were adult seminarians studying for the priesthood.

McCarrick has already received one of the most severe punishments short of defrocking. When the pope accepted his resignation as cardinal last July, he also ordered him to refrain from public ministry and to live in seclusion, prayer and penitence.

(MORE at link)

https://twitter.com/LifeNewsHQ/status/1094627104317194242

Florida Bill Would Ban Abortions After Unborn Baby’s Heart Begins Beating https://buff.ly/2WTvc6P

FTA:

FEB 8, 2019

At a time when many states are attempting to widen abortion access, Florida is joining a group of other states that are striving to protect the unborn.

A Florida state senator recently filed a bill to ban abortions after an unborn child’s heartbeat is detected.

According to WSVN News, Republican state Sen. Dennis Baxley filed SB 792 on Wednesday. The wording of the bill states that it would be a felony for any person who “knowingly or purposefully performs or induces an abortion on a pregnant woman with the specific intent of causing or abetting the termination of the life of the unborn human being whose fetal heartbeat has been detected.”

The fetal heartbeat bill was filed for consideration during the legislative session that begins on March 5, according to WUSF News.

In a statement, Baxley commented: “It’s time for us to face our history of the last 46 years and the 60 million faces of our offspring that we have extinguished…The heartbeat has always been the clear signal of the presence of life, and that life must be protected.”

SB 792 follows a similar bill that was filled in the Florida House of Representatives last month, HB 235. Currently, Florida law allows for abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

An unborn child’s heart can be detected beating around six weeks of pregnancy, but research suggests that a child’s heart may start beating around 18 days after conception.

While some states in the Northeast are radicalizing their abortion laws, several others are continuing to fight to preserve the lives of the unborn. Florida joins states like Tennessee, South Carolina and Kentucky in introducing heartbeat bills. Ohio passed similar legislation in late 2018, but it was vetoed by their governor. Despite this, Baxley said he remains optimistic about Florida’s outcomes.

https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1094274335085334528

Unreal video of an abortion doctor admitting he loves killing babies.

[Dude has the voice of a demon. Vid embedded at tweet link, can't embed here]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1094633257377787904

It was a very bad week for the Democrats, with the GREAT economic numbers, The Virginia disaster and the State of the Union address. Now, with the terrible offers being made by them to the Border Committee, I actually believe they want a Shutdown. They want a new subject!

>>5106828

>>5106765

>>5106635

Same article freely available here:

https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/gifts-to-clinton-foundation-from-foreign-governments-increasing

Gifts to Clinton Foundation From Foreign Governments Increasing

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has dropped a self-imposed ban and is again accepting contributions from foreign governments, the Wall Street Journal reports.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton became secretary of state in 2009, the William J. Clinton Foundation, as the foundation was named then, imposed a ban on most donations from foreign governments, although it accepted some in support of ongoing programs that were approved by State Department ethics officials. After Rodham Clinton resigned as secretary of state in early 2013, the renamed Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation accepted donations from at least four foreign governments and twice that number in 2014 — including gifts from the governments of Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Based on the foundation's contributors list, the Journal found that the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development agency of Canada, which is promoting construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, donated between $250,001 and $500,000 to the foundation in 2014.

A Clinton Foundation spokesperson told the Journal that the organization — which is in the midst of a $250 million endowment campaign — raises money for education, healthcare, and environmental projects around the world; that donors go through a vigorous vetting process; and that the Canadian donation originated from an agency office separate from the one that advocates for Keystone XL. Nonetheless, with Rodham Clinton widely expected to run for president, some argue that the foundation should reimpose the ban on foreign government gifts that was in place when she served as secretary of state.

"Now that she is gearing up to run for president, the same potential exists for foreign governments to curry favor with her as a potential president of the United States," said Kirk Hanson, director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

If Rodham Clinton were to become president, "she [wouldn't be able to] recuse herself" from controversies involving governments that had made donations to the foundation, said James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. "Whether it influences her decision making is questionable, but it is a legitimate thing to focus on by her political opposition."

James V. Grimaldi, Rebecca Ballhaus. "Foreign Government Gifts to Clinton Foundation on the Rise." Wall Street Journal 02/17/2015.

>>5106829

>>5106844

NO, that's DEMONIC POSSESSION. A buddy of mine is a priest, and his full time "job" is as an exorcist in DC. He said this is the voice of a DEMON.

He also was recently called to the HHS building in DC by someone he knows who works there and who felt the place was "evil." He confirmed that the BUILDING ITSELF is "obsessed" by Satan. He told us that MOST DC Gov buildings have a strong Satanic presence, because so many who work there are followers of the Evil One.